Too Hot to Handle
by Lyra Harp
Summary: Alan Albright finally runs into a situation that's too hot for him to handle. Who helps him? The one person he didn't want to see.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own _Ben 10_: _Alien Force_.

**Warning:** BoyxBoy - Don't like? Don't read.

~0~

Alan sat on a hill overlooking a field that went for miles in the middle of the night. The stars were gleaming, but he wasn't paying attention to them. Alan sighed. _Hurry up already_. _I know you have a wife so go home!_ Alan put his head in his hands and groaned. He knew it was selfish but he was going insane!

At first, Alan viewed the ice box in the "Sheriff's office" as a torture chamber and nuisance. A couple weeks ago, it became his savior. He knew he still had a lot to learn but he thought that it would have been nice if someone would have explained to him that his alien half would completely take control of his body. It was as though his alien half was going through a mating season - a season that Alan hoped was temporary. He didn't think he could handle any more of this.

It had been months since he had run into Ben, Gwen, Kevin, the DNAliens and their weather machine. Well, okay, so he really flew into Ben...but it wasn't his fault! His powers were out of his control then! Apparently, they still were now. Just when he thought he was getting a hold of his powers and how they work, heat blast decides to throw yet another obsticle at him - mating. Guess who he chooses as his signature mate? Swampfire. Ben Tennyson. The Omnitrix Welder. A person who could permanently put him on ice if he wanted to, and right now, Alan wanted that more than anything. If it meant not waking up to find solid magma on the ground of hiding out in a cave or dreaming of Swampfire, of Ben, as though he had the right-

"Alan?"

Alan yelped and transformed as he jumped up to face-

Big Chill?

"B-Ben? T-T-Tennyson?"

"The one and only." Alan stared at Ben uneasily. Why was Ben here? More importantly, why was Ben here _now?_ This wasn't exactly a good time! "Sorry. I know this form is a bit...freaky. Want me to...change?"

"No...No! Its fine! Your fine!" _So, so fine_. "I'm fine!"

"That's not what _I_ hear."

Big Chill turned invisible and approached Alan. Alan gasped when he felt Bens cold breath on his back. "W-What are you...d-doing?"

"Inspecting."

_Inspecting_ what_, exactly?_

Alan's breathing was slightly uneven as Big Chill continued to inspect his "chill heat blast" form. His blood boiled and it showed through the cracks. _Just nerves, that_'_s all_, Alan reasurred himself. _It_'_s completely normal to be nervous around your hero, right? Right_...

But he also knew that heating up in Ben's presense wasn't normal. If this continued, some magma may begin to rise to the surface and if that happened, he'd never live it down.

"B-Ben?" He shivered. "N-No offense, but your k-kind of...making me cold. Can you...ease up a little?" He remained as still as he could, trying to feel where Ben was by his breath. "Ben?"

"Yes?"

"Gah!" Alan fell over and changed back into his human form on the way down.

Big Chill was standing in front of Alan, chuckling. "Gotcha, didn't I?"

Alan pouted. "No fair."

"Who said I was fair?"

"Humph." Alan glanced over at the tower to his right. "So...find anything?"

"From what I've heard, you've been _on ice _for a while. Thought I would come and see what the damage is. From the looks of it, your having trouble _heating up_...Am I right?"

_Far from it_. Allen stood up and brushed invisible dirt off his knees. "Look, Ben, I'm fine." Ben stared at him. "Really. I'll deal with it."

"Does 'dealing with it' involve shoving yourself in a freezer at night?"

Alan froze. "Um..." _Not good_. _Definently not good_.

"You can't do that, Alan. You can get sick if your in there for an hour, let alone all night. If you keep it up you won't be able to transform anymore. Or worse - die. Is that what you want?"

"I can handle it."

"Are you sure its not too hot for you to handle?"

"Why can't you just leave me alone? I'm not you! You don't know what I'm going through!"

"That's the cry every alien hybrid tells. After awhile, the wolf is going to come after you. Do you want that?"

As if he even understood what it was Ben was trying to tell him. "Who said I ever wanted these powers? Maybe I don't want to transform anymore - have you ever thought of that?" It was far from the truth. But what else was he supposed to say? He wanted Ben to leave him alone - physically and mentally. _I_ _can_'_t control my powers and I hate that I can_'_t even look at him without wanting to go full-on heat blast_. But if he did that and the magma began to show and-Why couldn't he be like every other male his age? A hard on he could handle. But turning into a ball of fire everytime he thought of Ben? Yeah, that he couldn't handle. Especially since he was _supposed_ to be living a semi-normal life. A semi-normal life does not include his head turning into a ball of fire while taking a shower.

That's why he's been playing sick for weeks and avoiding his mother and any and all plumber calls. What if his 'affection' made him too hot? What if he burned a hole in the ground so deep he became one with the center of the earth? What if he couldn't switch it off once he switched it on? He liked being on ice as long as it meant that he didn't burn everything and everyone he ever cared about...or burned himself into oblivion. Whether that was possible Alan didn't know, but he didn't want to find out.

"What you _want_ is not up for negotiation. I'm taking you in."

"Your arresting me?"

"If it means making sure you don't kill yourself...Yeah. I am."

"I'm not going."

"You don't have a choice."

"Want to bet?" Alan transformed into heat blast and flew off across the field with Big Chill on his tail. "Leave me alone!"

"Hate to...disapoint." Big Chill froze heat blast a good distance from the ground. When heat blast fell until he was covered by the crops, Big Chill went down to investigate. But neither Alan nor heat blast were anywhere to be seen.

~0~

Alan was shivering on the floor of the cave he had deemed his own. At the moment, he was the most "chill" he suspected he could ever get as heat blast. There was a puddle of water around him. While the ice Big Chill had surrounded him with had melted, he was far from being able to heat up.

_Why? Why did it all come to this?_

Alan was frustrated and beyond miserable. If it wasn't for his alien half he wouldn't be in this predicament - shivering on a cave floor in the middle of nowhere, far from home, frustrated sexually and mentally, and, worst of all, on the run from the one person he didn't want to fight with under any circumstance. And now that person was hunting for him...all because of him to begin with! It certainly wasn't the type of hunting he _wanted_, that was for sure. But he couldn't fight back on this one. You can't pull the "he started it" line with the plumbers. It just never ended well.

When Ben did come for him, Alan didn't even put up a fight. He just layed there, shivering, let Ben curl his arms around him and-

Alan was beyond confused. For one thing, Ben didn't attempt to move him. The puddle of water around him was also almost completely dried up, and judging by the texture of the appendages surrounding him, Alan only had one guess to who Ben had chosen to become after freezing him. Alan's guess was confirmed when Swampfire lit a light for the cave almost directly against the cave wall. While Alan could feel Swampfire against him, his head lit up immediately when he looked down. Swampfire had surrounded him in a cacoon of sorts with his vine-like appendages, and given that heat blast was in the middle of his mating season, the situation did not bode well with Alan.

Swampfire chuckled. "That was fast." Alan could feel magma begin to flow through the cracks and burn the vines at just the sound of Swampfire's voice. But instead of being mad, Swampfire spouted new vines and dug them deep into heat blast's core. "Want some help?"

"Please," Allen groaned.

Remarkably, or perhaps obviously, heat blast overheated rather quickly and proceeded to until Swampfire deemed him sated. Swampfire playfully swatted parts of Alan's body until he told him to "cut it out." Swampfire chuckled.

"How'd you know?"

"It wasn't hard to guess. Remember, I've been in your alien's shoes before. I know what its like growing up with alien DNA and thinking that you can't talk to anyone about it. It hurts...But it can also be alot of fun. Your alien side will retaliate, however, if you try to suppress it too much.

"So I noticed," Alan grumbled, face blazing. "So you knew all along?"

"_Naturally_." Swampfire swatted at Allen's lower half again.

"Cut it out. I've had enough."

"Not from where I'm standing. You have a long way to go before heat blast's mating season is over."

Alan groaned. It was going to be a long night.


End file.
